Maghrebis - Anthropology, Genetics and Linguistics - Influences On Europe and Latin America - Canary Islands

Canary Islands

In Canary Islands, a study by Nicole Maca-Meyer in 2003 found mtDna haplogroup U6 at rate of 14% in the present-day Canary Islands populations reflecting the Berber origin of the Guanches, the aboriginal population of the Canary Islands. In this study they compared aboriginal Guanche mtDNA (collected from Canarian archaeological sites) to that of today's Canarians and concluded that, "despite the continuous changes suffered by the population (Spanish colonization, slave trade), aboriginal mtDNA lineages constitute a considerable proportion of the Canarian gene pool". MtDNA haplogroup L were also found at rate of 6.6% and E-M81 at a rate of 8.28% with frequencies over 10% in the three largest islands of Tenerife (10.68%), Gran Canaria (11.54%) and Fuerteventura (13.33%). According to Fregel et al. 2009 the presence of autochthonous North African E-M81 lineages, and also other relatively abundant markers (E-M78 and J-M267) from the same region in the indigenous Guanche population, "strongly points to that area as the most probable origin of the Guanche ancestors". In this study, they estimated that, based on Y-chromosome and mtDNA haplogroup frequencies, the relative female and male indigenous Guanche contributions to the present-day Canary Islands populations were respectively of 41.8% and 16.1%.

An autosomal study in 2011 found an average Northwest African influence of about 17% in Canary Islanders with a wide interindividual variation ranging from 0% to 96%. According to the authors, the substantial Northwest African ancestry found for Canary Islanders supports that, despite the aggressive conquest by the Spanish in the 15th century and the subsequent immigration, genetic footprints of the first settlers of the Canary Islands persist in the current inhabitants. Paralleling mtDNA findings, the largest average Northwest African contribution was found for the samples from La Gomera.